Through Ace Taylor’s Eyes

I had the pleasure of roaming Illinois, Kentucky and a chunk of the Missouri Bootheel with Ace Taylor, the 13-year-old nephew of museum director Carla Jordan. Carla mentioned that Ace was interested in photography and was good company, so invited him to hit the road Thursday.

It’s never good to waste a perfectly good seat, so Carla’s ready-to-ramble mother, Carolyn Taylor, filled it. I have the feeling that she may become like Mother was: jingle the keys and she’s ready to go.

I tried to think of a photo-rich environment where taking good pictures would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

It turned out to happen, almost literally. When we got to the spillway at the southeast end of Horseshoe Lake, we saw hundreds of minnow-size fish frolicking in the overflow. We couldn’t tell if they were trying to fight the current to get upstream into the lake or if they were beings swept out of it. A couple of fishermen said they were baby carp. It’s worth clicking on it to make it larger. Maybe someone can tell us if the fishermen were right.

The kid has a good eye

I got my first camera at 12. Ace is so far ahead of where I was at his age that there is no comparison. I didn’t point out any particular shot to him. I would give him a little background about why the location was interesting from a geologic or historical perspective, then I’d look around and Ace was already scoping out angles and getting busy.

Experimenting with framing

Ace wasn’t a plain old point-and-shoot photographer. He experimented with shooting through things and with the relationships of shapes. He also had a good grasp of depth of field and the relationship between lens settings and shutter speeds. He tried using slower shutter speeds when shooting the fish photo so the water movement would show up, then he switched to higher speeds to freeze the fish. All of this without a word of advice from me.

In fact, I tried to capture the jumping fish in a video, but Ace aced me hands-down with his still shot.

Not afraid to get in the middle of it

I told him that photographers have a responsibility to document the world around them for future generations. He took a dramatic photo of a machine eating one of my favorite old buildings in Cairo.

“You realize,” I told him, “that you have taken the last photograph of that building that anyone will ever see. If you come back tomorrow, it’ll be gone, and the opportunity to document it will never be there again.”

[Note to Ace’s Mom: he was very cautious. He was careful to step in areas clear of nails and glass, and I always made sure he wasn’t any place where he was in danger.]

A deliberate shooter

The kid wasn’t a pray and spray shooter. After he took a photo, he would study it to see if he had captured what he was looking for or if he should take another crack at it.

A quiet kid

I don’t know that I’ve ever met any boy that age who was so quiet and soft-spoken. When he DID talk, he had something to say. I liked that.

The next day, he was helping Carla at the History Center in Jackson, so we didn’t roam around. I stopped by the center to give him a polarizing filter that I discovered had a small scratch. It probably won’t make any difference, but I’m persnickety about that kind of thing.

We talked gear and techniques, then I watched him wander around the room checking out how the filter would eliminate reflections. I give him credit for understanding when you DON’T want to use it.

“I WANTED the reflections in the water in the picture of the cypress trees, so I wouldn’t use it there, would I?” he asked.

You nailed it, kid.

If he continues at the pace he’s on, he won’t have to talk: he can let his camera and photos speak for him.

Ace Taylor’s work

Here’s a selection of what Ace photographed in roughly six hours (including 150 miles of driving). Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

Keep in mind while you are looking at these pictures that Ace Taylor is 13 years old.

12 Replies to “Through Ace Taylor’s Eyes”

Great work Ace! I know your Mom, Dad, Nana and Aunt Carla are very proud of the artist you are becoming and of the young man that you are. And thank you Mr. Steinhoff for mentoring him while he was visiting his Aunt Carla. Not many people take the time to show young kids the ropes now days.

Thank you, Ken. Ace had a day he will remember forever. Mom also had a wonderful day. She said she wished she could live in one of those little Sears and Roebuck houses. I treasure your friendship. I hope Ace can show you his world in Southeast Kansas someday.

Thanks for sharing Ace’s stunning photos. It’s sad to see the demise of Cairo, my birthplace. I especially love the photo of the Cairo bridge. My mother cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the bridge.

Great job Ace! You had a lot of really great shots. I am blown away by the lines in the shots where the heavy equipment is tearing down the building.

My other faves are the first under the bridge shot, your cypress shots, and the square patches of color on the building where there had been displays. Oh, and the stairways!

You know, I first got to know Ken because I made a comment on some pics he took in Cairo, basically saying I saw such stuff that I wanted to photograph whenever I drove through (and a bridge was closed at the time, routing me through there more often that I had been used to) but I was scared because I had heard bad things about Cairo. Ken basically told me not to be silly.

I eventually braved up and went there with a friend and our cameras and got some good shots. And met some neat people all because of that photo comment. (Your aunt was one of those in a roundabout way!)

Not only did Ace get some nice pictures in Cairo, but we had a super lunch at Shemwell’s BBQ. The catfish dinners were super.

We had one disappointment: there was a gate blocking Ft. Defiance, so I wasn’t able to go down to let them do a dual dip in two of the continents mightiest rivers. There was a lock and chain on the gate, but it was only secured at one end with bailing wire. I thought about opening the gate, but decided I didn’t want to get caught transporting a minor across state lines for immortal purposes.

Wonderful young photographer! Wonderful Story! Thanks for taking him out and sharing with us! Yes he can line up a photo great – he has a natural eye to look at something some might say is mundane and see the architectural wonder in a certain angle. Thank you for encouraging him and allowing us to say to him; Don’t stop just keep feeding that camera through your eyes Ace Taylor! Love that you love the abandoned and neglected to see the beauty and history of it Taylor!!!

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Cape Central High Photos

Ken Steinhoff, Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1965, was a photographer for The Tiger and The Girardot, and was on the staff of The Capaha Arrow and The Sagamore at Southeast Missouri State University. He worked as a photographer / reporter (among other things) at The Jackson Pioneer and The Southeast Missourian.

He transferred to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, his junior year, and served as photo editor of The Ohio University Post. He was also chief photographer of The Athens Messenger.

He was chief photographer of the Gastonia (NC) Gazette for a long 18 months until he could escape to The Palm Beach Post, where he served as a staff photographer, director of photography, editorial operations manager and telecommunications manager. He accepted a buyout in 2008, after 35 years at the paper.

Most of the stories are about growing up in a small Midwestern town on the Mississippi River, but there’s no telling what you might run into.

Please comment on the articles when you see I have left out a bit of history, forgotten a name or when your memory of a circumstance conflicts with mine.

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